Business-chambers Presidents and politics. Local articulations of identity conflicts and businessmen militancy in Turkey

The article examines the relationship between consular chambers and the government, often studied on a macro scale and interpreted as a relationship of nepotic domination. By exploring, at the micro level, the divergent behaviors of two consular presidents of two Turkish cities during the 2015 legislative elections, this article shows how this relationship refers to the way in which the president defines his role. The presidents interviewed conceive of their role as that of an employer activist, but exercise it in junction with other identity militancies. The analysis of the trajectories of the businessmen occupying this position highlights how this role is conceived at the end of a process of notabilisation and how it is claimed to represent a non-partisan business consensus. The analysis of their commitments during the election periods shows how the implementation of this role, actually very political, depends on the peculiarities of the “framework of interaction” in which they operate. This analysis demonstrates how the tension between the obligations of an official businessmen representation and the government of local particularisms produces some autonomy for the presidents of chambers in their relations to politics.